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“People are just as wonderful as sunsets if you let them be. When I look at a sunset, I don't find myself saying, "Soften the orange a bit on the right hand corner." I don't try to control a sunset. I watch with awe as it unfolds.” (Carl Rogers)

Thursday, 10 July 2014

July 10th #chinadiary

A recap of previous events, including a night-time houseboat trip on high water on the night of the 4th July, destination Hangchow College and a YM conference on the afternoon of the 5th. Carl was happy to have met some familiar faces there, but not so happy to have had to speak twice. He found it hard to leave the conference and new friends, many of whom he thinks he will never see again. There's a real sense of journey's end in the writing at this point.

Carl is offered a very nice job in India on the student YM staff, but he is not tempted as "the more I see out here, the more the importance of the best education I can get grows on me."

He is homeward bound and Carl surely hated to leave China: "There is something about China that 'gets' you." He feels pretty blue. He also says he finds it impossible to sum up his impressions of China - and yet I am moved by how he manages to be both eloquent and self-aware in saying so:

To try to give your impressions of an experience extending over four months which has changed your whole outlook on many questions economic, political, international, and religious, an experience that is continually going to have a deeper effect on your life the further you get away from it, is quite impossible for me.